Zipfiss and the Precision Time Trio

Sorry it's been a few days but exams seem to monopolize ones time.

Tonight i actually had a shift in the RA office, a first this year and it went well. Mica, my former boss, dropped by and said he had been hearing good things and that i was doing a really good job this year on the RA team. It's nice to have encouragement from authority figures some time :). On this side of things, I'm still not sure if i want to try and be RS at the end of this year. I still haven't figured out intern stuff or summer stuff yet. Kara and our future is mingle in there somewhere... well not somewhere but everywhere but you know what I mean. There are a lot of decisions to be made and as i'm typing this i realize i need to go to God first... Thank you Blog for reminding me what to do by allowing me to work through things in my mind... (i'll be right back but you really wont notice anything as you have no concept of the my time withing this blog... in this sense anyway :P)  Well i'm back... i've done the dishes, i've prayed, i've read and my heart is still heavy for more reasons than simply the future...

Tonight i fell into the bain of my heart. That sin that has always gotten me, and still has its claws deeply embedded in the flesh of my soul. Why can i never be rid you Devil! Have i not power in the name of Christ? But who am i? Am i one of those who did miracles in your name yet never knew you or am i like the disciples sent out to minister to the people you love? Am i as proverbs 14:2 says... Am i Just one who despises you? And what of 14:5, 25? Am i all but a false deceitful witness? Why can i not be the truth i so desperately want to be and what of speaking words that mean nothing? Why is the one thing i apparently am good deceit. Why do i find it so easy to hide all i don't want seen, to hide those things i'm ashamed of, to hide those emotions of destruction within me, to hide beside acceptance of others. Why can i not accept the acceptance of the only one that truly matters. Why do i do the things i don't want to do and not do the things i want to do? Why is every step i take fail?

Why do i long for something i apparently cannot achieve? I wonder this in my head as i always turn back to sin yet i desire the heart of God. Why could these convictions not be removed? Because that would make my life easy and worthless, this is why the Lord of the Universe has written his Law on my heart. He loves me and because of this he wants the best for me and know what is best for me. There is no trial he will allow us to go through which we can not handle but relying on him. we just need to rely on him. So here i am i'm crying out for your love, your grace, your mercy, your LOVE... Why does God know us so well? Why has he Bless me So much! why do people say you never know what you've got till it's gone. Is this because they don't notice what it does for them because it's always done it? or is it because there is a void in heart, a lack of Care? I know of some blessing in my life and i am refusing to wait until they are gone to realize they are their. To my Family you are the most amazing people i know and i Love you so incredible much. You have been the most influencal people in my life. Dad i love you and i look up to you more than you know. Mum I love you so incredible much and see the strength i desire. Sis I love you and everything you are. To those who have taught me and grown me, i thank God for you and what i have learned from you and pray that one day i will be able to do the same for someone else. *** (i'll let you know what those are for in a little bit) I was going to write something here but it can wait just a little bit. You never know who reads these things and as hard as that is knowing who does can be harder. Kara now knows about you but i don't think she knows i'm posting again. All that to say is i want to be honest to fullest extend with You and that is harder when i know who is reading or could be but it makes this more than just a simple blog it makes it a journal, a safe place. The unique ability it has as not being safe and being safe is what honesty is all about. Trusting someone is letting people in, loving someone is giving them the power to break you. There is one person i really didn't speak of before of those who influence my life. And if i'm honest this is what i was going to write next and she is the one God is using to influence me and show me his love in the most powerful way. I refuse to not see what God has bless me with. Kara I LOVE YOU and i mean it with every fiber in my being. Those asteria earlier , those are the point i took a break from blogging and had a conversation with Kara (and if your reading this Kara with you)... Our God is an amazing God, he works in the craziest of ways. Kara if you are reading this look over what  i wrote before i talked to you. Is there one point that you did not reiterate to me or one point you said that is not there. Isn't it odd how you know something yet until someone else says it too you it is equal to what one of my Profs would say "bovine excrement". Kara God has placed you in my life as an amazing blessing and you make me smile without ceasing but i it is God who is allowing you to do this to me because you are his first and foremost. You are his daughter and i need to ask his permission first (sermon illustration for youth group on dating i think so :P :D) Today has been one of those weird and yet not weird days. Earlier i spent it writing out a few dreams i have to place in a scrap book Kara made about us for me... Ten years and we will look at them. This was an amazing time i spent with God and in a sense with you. And the future that God has set before us the race we are suppose to run has become a little bit clearer :).

I was extremely down after talking to God first and i was wondering why it wasn't one of those times that God makes you joyful. Nonetheless i came to a conclusion if you will and i sent Kara a text. It was about my struggle in a sense but more so a pre-emptive strike about how it might make her feel... God told her to Call and pray for me... She obeyed... And you know what, i learned a lot in this conversation. More than words can describe and more than words conveyed. God Gave me one of those moments and said it is my time.

I think i will leave you here today as it is now 8:30 in the morning and i have not slept at all. But today though through the weary battle i fight, God gives me respite. More than this God gives me hope for the battle is already one as it it is the lords battle and not my own. It's funny, i thought this post was going to be more depressing and question, hence the part that almost sounds like a suicide note to those i'm leaving (sorry if i gave that impression, was never the intention)  but God has turned it into a note of encouragement. I have seen Gods Love. I have felt his Grace. I know God and that is the most amazing thing in the world (sorry Kara but you know this to be true :))

This is my struggle. This is my Story. This is the path i have chosen to walk down. And this is my testimony of How Good God is.

A Timed Struggling Stranger

The Pathetic Path - Past Not Forgotten

Again it has been a long while since last I saw you, and there are numerous reasons for that I suppose but my mind has slipped back into the thinking of this blog. Finding Who I am; cognitively and systematically detailing the events in my mind to sort through and logically place who i am. In a sense this Blog acts as a journal and as of now its taking a turn from the depressed and down hearted writings of a person disconnected from God to the story of self discovery in the sense of exactly who i am and what my specific purpose is. I suppose this doesn't change exactly what is written as pertaining to whoever reads this as it is not written to be found. This is written to help me understand who i am, what my strengths are and what i'm doing in this world. This is the story, the path of me becoming who i am. I have not changed the name, nor my name in all of this because i will not forget my past because it helps me discover who i am and who i want to be. This is the Struggle of Stranger still as i invite you to journey with me. I write for myself this time, to learn, but i hope that whoever reads would find something to glean from the sometimes frantic, scatter-brained and generally psychotic writings of a Someone Searching. But enough of trying to put words to my purpose in all of this as i have found it extremely difficult and as such feel like it has not flown like anything i normally write.

A lot has happened since last i recorded the outcomes of my days. Where to begin is the question. Well i suppose the best way to decide that is to talk about what is most on my mind, in a good way. Kara. All i can say to this is the Lord works in funny ways but amazing ways. I never thought i would have been someone date a girl twice and in a sense i'm not but in the truest notion of it all i am. Kara and I are together. But more than just together. We know each other. I truly can and do tell her everything. I have told her about this blog and she has read the entire thing. We have worked through some of the hardest things since we have been together and i have come to terms with many of my 'demons' if you will. But i'm sure your wondering how in the heck? Well i suppose i should fill you in. When last i wrote the feelings and emotions coursing through the smallest parts of my brain revolved around Mira, Camp, and Kara. I was emotionally distraught. Camp further drained me physically and spiritually i was not being fed. The culmination of this breaks down later and i'll get into that but in the midst of the interlude to that me and Kara found ourselves together. It's hard to explain just how this happened. We drifted into each other as when together we simply seemed not able to control ourselves. Regardless one needs to know that we were together and things were not right with God in any sense. This built to the 'divide' as i'm going to call it. Me and Kara were both just drained and she came into my cabin and we were talking. This is a big no no as we were alone and girls just aren't suppose to be in guys cabins. Well we got in trouble. This trouble was in the sense of one or both of us were going to being sent home. This may seem harsh to some but as leaders, and both Kara and I are leaders, are to be above r reproach and simple as that we were not. But this lead to perhaps the single greatest worst and best week of my life. Instead of sending either of us home we were in isolation. For a week we did not do any of our duties. It was up to us for how we were to spend this week. For me not being able to be with the kids, doing my job, tormented me and obliterated me. This, however is not the single most import than aspect of this solitude. It snapped me out of the state i was in. It was a wake up call. I had been relying on my own strength, i had been doing what i wanted, i had been extremely selfish. I wanted the glory that God, and God alone, is worthy of. I wanted to do things by my own strength and God through this showed me that my strength was feeble and fails. I spent that week fasting, praying, reading. Something i had not done in a long time. And it was not some great relief when i did. It got harder and depressing. It shook me to down to the very core of who i am. It utterly brought me to rock bottom.

a shadow cast on the floor
reflects nothing in light
but the emptiness in its void
reveals the darkness it hides

the silhouette of a man who stands at the door
all around him is light, defining the core

consumption by one the, destruction the rest
Here he stands to decide whats best

To enter is more than revealing his face
for to one is shadows the other is grace

Darkness hides and light reveals
a fate in which forever seals

The Door but opens only on way
and only fear causes him to stay

Consumption by one, destruction the rest
Here he stands to decide whats best

I no longer had the delusions of several options. There was choice to be made and there is no sitting on the fence. This torture i went to stripped me of all i had imagined, created, masked. It showed me who i really am. I am a man who at his very core seeks God, loves God, wants God's will to be done. It stripped away all other things and showed me my priorities and how out of place they were. God has always been on the list but i had lost sight of him being at the top.
This stemmed out of part because of everything with Mira but it delves much deeper into a slow decay of deceit, death, and dismay. I can blame this mis-prioritization on Mira but that would simply be another self lie i would be feeding myself. Mira was the outcome of a slow and long process of falling away from God. All of this, in my simplified human feeble words, is what hit me in an instance nearer the end of that week of hell. The outworking of this however was something so much more. I found out who at the core i was, and i found out who at the core i wanted and need. I realized what truly sets my heart in wonder, what i am attracted to because it is something i admire and long for. It is not something easy to describe other than 'you' but decrepit words do try in a longing for God. A heart for and of God. At the root of it all is God . That week brought me back to the true me; God centered. Contradictory my message is you say *yes i imagined that in a yoda voice* Yes i know who i am at the very core but this blog is now serving to help me discern who i am within that Capacity. That week marks an A.D. B.C. split. in My life and my relationship with Kara. I had my eyes opened in different ways. I saw who i was truly and i saw what i wanted, and all that i wanted was in Kara. My eyes were on God and i saw, i see, God in her. Never have i know attraction like this. Never have i been drawn to someone so much. Never have i let someone in like this, nor will i ever again. I got a text today from Jared. It simple said "hey man i hear you guys are the real deal this time. I'm happy for you shes a great girl". This embodies the change. I replied saying how i had told him things were different. The thing that is different, the attraction of this all is not something as simple as i like Kara over someone. I am attracted to everything about her because i know what i want, and God knows what i need and both of these focus, center, pinpoint align in Kara. I am attracted to her more than i ever thought was possible. I knew not something like this existed. I am attracted to her physical, perhaps one of the first things a guy notices, i'm attracted to her emotionally, she makes me smile and i make her smile and so much more, but the most important thing i learned is i'm attracted to her spiritually. She is centered on God, she has a faith so strong, she is who God has chosen for me. So many thing s in our story i cannot explain as simple coincidence and chance. God has moved in our lives and day after day i am growing closure to him, and more in love with her. Every little detail i analyze i see Gods hand in and how much i'm attracted to her. Some would say that once you have her the chase of the game is over. I've found that its not over, it changes. You chase after her loving you more and you loving her more. You chase after every little thing that makes her smile, even the tiniest bit broader or longer, you chase after knowing her even the tiniest bit better just to please her that smallest amount more. That week i got right with God. That does not mean its been clean easy sailing *i like the cut of your Jib, :)* Me and Kara had to work through a lot of crap, and still do. We may not get in the typical fights or arguments that couples do but it is not easy. Those fights may come or they may not but we still have a ton of difficulties we work through but instead of working through them yelling we work through them our own way. I'm not going to try and fill you in on all that has transpired in this way but i will continue to let you in when things arise. This ends what i tell you to catch up. Though it is incomplete and very brief i hope it portrays in all color the change that has indeed transpired within me and how it has effected everything in my life.

I write today, Sunday, the week of my midterm exams and the most pressing thing still on my mind is my Career Youth Leadership Class. It has weighed on my spirit and what has brought me down the path of self awareness; rather the need there of. In this class the idea of leading from your strengths is the ideal. But i have no idea what my strengths are. I see most of what i do as skills i have learned. Nothing it seems comes naturally to me. And this is thus the purpose of this rather self center thing know as a blog. I have always seen a blog in the purpose of it benefiting the readers. I know see it as something different. I see that it can benefit the readers but more so the writer. It is he who can freely express his thoughts and if any comments arise i see it as more input data to help him sort through the things of this life. So with this i say i am writing and hope you get something out of it it but this truly is not something to have my words be heard is is to hear the words i have said myself.

Enough of all of this explaining.

Today i woke up and simple have done nothing else today. I have written this and eaten. The thoughts that really have driven my thinking are of Mark and his GF, Mary. They had a fight last night and it is not the fight that so much put concern in my mind it is what mark resolved the reason for the fight to begin with. He was wondering and wanted to ask Mary the reason for their relationship. He was wondering if there was any actual substance to their relationship. This concerns me but does not terrible surprise me. Though Mark has not dated in awhile i definitely see were this could be an empty, void relationship prying on or thriving on loneliness. I have seen that from the beginning or could see that from the beginning. Te other side of this is in the form of something mark observed and longed for. He saw me and our other roommate Scott, praying with our girlfriends. It challenged him and he wanted that with Mary and as far as i know they did. If he saw nothing in it he would not have done this. This is my reasoning anyways.

Something that has been on my mind is my strengths and what the heck they are. Kara sees me differently than i see myself. She sees something in me or about me and it's truly driving me nuts because she won't tell me. :) I know she should not because it is something i need to figure out for myself. So here is my attempt at trying to figure it out. I'm decent at music i can pick something up and playing it with limited pre-knowledge. What i mean is i can figure out sounds it makes and put them together to sound like something but this is something i have learned from piano. This is a skill not strength. In the sense of speaking i am decent but it does not come naturally. Writing i leave to you whether or not it is even decent, but it is not strength. I am good at most things i try my hand at but nothing jumps out. There is not one thing that truly comes naturally too me that i excel at. As situations arise i will try to identify things within in them but i fear i will only help in discerning my weaknesses not my strengths. Well this has been one long and rather boring post so i will leave it here.

Till the next time

An Inward Looking Struggling Stranger